


Awful Coincidence

by Romiress



Category: DCU (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics)
Genre: Lots of discussion of Contract Killing, M/M, Slade is a bag of trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24532906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Slade goes out contract killing. Sometimes, that means killing people he'd rather not: undignified, boring cases that pose no challenge at all.Heavily inspired by theCompatible Differencesseries! You should probably read that first.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Slade Wilson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 96
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Awful Coincidence

In a perfect, ideal world, Slade's work would always be interesting, but the world isn't perfect. A lot of the jobs he takes have good pay and zero challenge. Some of them are so mundane he feels like he could do them in his sleep.

Land acquisition is a readily expanding field for him. There's a lot of people—mostly big corporations—that want certain pieces of land. There's also a lot of people—mostly old folks, but often younger people as well—who won't sell them that land. And when grandma and grandpa aren't willing to sell and are blocking a multi-million dollar project, Deathstroke gets the call.

He mostly avoids _real_ families. His choice to avoid killing parents and kids has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with the fact that killing a family of four gets heroes after him like nothing else. If an elderly couple dies in their home, it barely even makes the local news. Even younger couples are easy enough to disguise as an accidental death.

But kids? Much harder.

He's on one of those jobs late one afternoon when trouble comes calling. He's out in the middle of _buttfuck nowhere,_ engaging in the oldest trick in the book: his car's broken down.

Never mind that it's broken down because he's made it broke down. It more or less never fails as he leaves his car just in sight (but not in front of the house), cutting through a cornfield up to the front door and knocking nicely.

The story he tells is identical. He's done it hundreds of times. He's from out of town and only passing through for work (what he does varies, depending on if they ask and what he thinks will fly). His car broke down. He's called a tow, but the company says they're dealing with something else, and it might be two or three hours until someone shows up.

He always starts small, asking to use a bathroom. It's a normal, mundane thing, and almost inevitably the poor old couple invites him to stick around. They give him snacks and drinks. They complain along with him about how hot (or cold, depending on the season) it is.

Slade accepts their kindness even as he works out how to kill them. They're old— _very_ old—and there are a lot of different options. Gas leak? Fall? Poison leading to a heart attack? Part of the job is to make it as unsuspicious as possible, so he doesn't just kill them and vanish. He stakes them out. He learns about them.

And then he pauses at the wall of family photos, taking note to figure out who's likely to inherit the property. Only one person is obvious, a son, which makes his job—

Slade's brain screeches to a halt.

The boy in the photos seems... familiar.

Too familiar.

"Oh, is that your son?" He asks, reaching up to tap one of the photos. He keeps his voice nice and casual, even if he's screaming internally.

"Oh yes! That's our Clark. He—"

Slade doesn't even listen to the rest of what the old man's saying. The only thing that matters is that the people he was hired to kill are _The Kents,_ and their son is named _Clark,_ and Slade's smart enough to put two and two together and get four.

He's been hired—probably by some fucking idiot who didn't know any better—to kill Clark's parents.

After that, nothing else really matters. He holds up his hand, silencing Mr. Kent, who looks at him in confusion.

"You can stop talking now. Literally everything I said to you in the last twenty minutes was bullshit, and you can ignore it. What matters is that you're in a lot of danger and I need to call your son."

He neglects to mention that a significant portion of that danger is from him as he strides over to the phone, leaving the very confused couple behind. The fact that they even _have_ a home phone feels laughably quaint, but he appreciates it for what it brings to the table.

He calls Clark and gets an answering machine. Not surprising, considering it's the middle of the day and he's probably at work. Slade dials again, and the second time, Clark picks up.

"Ma," he says, indignant. "I told you that you can't just call me while I'm at work."

"It's not your mother, Clark."

There's a moment of absolute, perfect silence, and yet that silence speaks volumes. That silence speaks of Clark weighing the risks of running out of the office and flying straight to Smallville, secret identity be damned. It speaks of him weighing the odds. Considering the risks.

"I'm not going to kill them, so you can stay put," Slade says before Clark can do something stupid. There's an alarmed noise from behind him, but Slade ignores it.

 _"What_ are you doing in my parents house?" Clark says, and there's a dangerous edge to his voice despite Slade's reassurances.

"Not killing them, for one," Slade says, because he thinks that deserves to be said more than once. "Apparently someone wants your family farm, and your parents weren't willing to sell. Now there's a hit out on them."

"Which you took."

"Hold on," Martha Kent says from behind him. "There's a _hit_ out on us?"

Slade ignores them.

"Which I took, yes."

"Slade, if you touch them—"

"Don't be an idiot."

"You never fail a contract."

"And I—"

Slade's hand darts up, intercepting the baseball bat before it can crack against his skull. Not that it would have seriously _done_ anything, but it's the principal of the thing as he jerks it out of Jonathan Kent's hands.

"Your father just tried to brain me," he says into the phone, opting to snap the wooden bat in half just to make a point. Jonathan looks alarmed, reeling back, and Slade sets the bat aside with one hand. "But no, I'm not going to kill them, so you can calm down, alright?"

"I'm not calming down," Clark hisses. "You've never failed a contract—"

"I have in fact failed _several_ contracts, you just don't hear about them," Slade snaps. "And more importantly, I enjoy living. I'm not going to kill your parents, because then you'd tear me in half."

"I wouldn't—"

"You absolutely would, let's not pretend. The whole point of me calling you was so that when your parents say some stranger showed up and acted weird, you know it was me and that you don't have to worry."

He pauses, reconsidering.

"Actually, you should worry. Get Bats to install a goddamn security system here."

"What the hell is going on?" Jonathan Kent says, but it's mumbled and under his breath, so Slade doesn't deign him with an answer.

"And they _are_ in danger. If someone hired you, someone's going to—"

"No, because I'm going to kill the guy who hired me so there's no record. With the change in the company, your parents will be forgotten. Problem solved."

"You can't just—"

"Can and will." He regrets the fact that he's on a home phone, because he means he can't literally walk out the door while talking with Clark. "I'm going to hang up and go now. Your parents are fine, you can call them back if you want."

"Or you could just put them on the phone."

Slade grumbles, and then without further preamble, holds the phone out for the Kents to take.

Martha's the one who grabs it, pulling it to her ear while glaring daggers at Slade.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," she says into the phone, and Slade's already going, heading for the door. Jonathan Kent doesn't try and stop him, but he does follow him to the door, squinting the whole way.

Slade doesn't look back as he heads for the car, starting it without issue. He hopes beyond hope that Clark isn't going to bring it up the next time they see each other, but he also knows he _absolutely_ is going to.

He's not looking forward to it.


End file.
